


In This, the Year of Our Lord 2017

by hashtag_anthems



Series: Long Live the Voltron Squad [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: College AU, M/M, and pidge uses it to her advantage, and shiro sleeps through almost the whole thing, groupme au, im letting him rest dang it, pidge and matt are on a nostalgia trip, plans are made, technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-25
Updated: 2017-09-25
Packaged: 2019-01-05 09:12:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,396
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12187137
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hashtag_anthems/pseuds/hashtag_anthems
Summary: In which Pidge finds some incriminating evidence, Matt refuses to give her the satisfaction of revealing it, and Lance finally admits that he might have a crush on someone.





	In This, the Year of Our Lord 2017

**Author's Note:**

> This is late and I blame school, but here's the second installment. I also was kind of lazy with the editing, so I might end up fixing some things later.

            “Can’t believe we still have this,” Pidge muttered. She was currently elbow-deep in a bin of her and Matt’s things from back when she was in… it had to be fifth grade, because Matt had been in seventh when they got the clunky laptop currently occupying the bottom of the bin. It was heavier than she remembered. Her gaming laptop was probably lighter than this thing.

            She managed to pull the laptop out and set it aside, digging around for the charger that, knowing Matt, had to be stored in the same spot as the computer. Tossing aside some old action figures and stuffed animals, Pidge finally spotted a black power cable at the very bottom of the bin. “Wonder if it still works…” She threw the old toys back into the bin and shoved it back among the many others occupying the garage. Pidge was putting off going through this stuff, and it looked like she had a reason to avoid it today too. Getting her things sorted and remembering which bins even had her stuff that she needed for college was probably important, but she still had a few weeks before classes actually started.

            She unlocked her phone and snapped a picture of the laptop where it was sitting next to her on the couch before settling in and plugging in the charger. She was probably a little too excited when the charging light turned on. That was promising. This thing had barely worked when they eventually replaced it. She wasn’t even sure if they upgraded the operating system past XP. It had been years since she’d even thought about this thing…

            _Two Peanuts sent a photo to Long Live the Voltron Squad._

_Two Peanuts: Guys look what I found._

_Two Peanuts: **@oh shit, my patella** I found this in the garage, get down here._

It had been a few days since anyone had posted in the group chat, following the… events of the other night. To be fair, Pidge had typed up an apology and sent it to Lance. She kind of took the teasing too far, but to be fair, she hadn’t really known that Lance _actually_ had a crush on Shiro. Granted, he hadn’t admitted it yet, but Pidge had known Lance for a while now. She knew that Lance had a tendency to avoid uncomfortable truths, and the guy was almost scarily good at it. If he was trying this hard to make sure he didn’t have to discuss it with anyone, then there was a good chance that Pidge was right and nothing was going to happen between Lance and Shiro unless someone intervened. That someone might as well be her.

            The laptop, if she remembered correctly, was taking significantly less time to boot up than it used to. When she was presented with the login screen, she shouted so that, hopefully, Matt could hear her from upstairs, “Hey Matt! Get down here and log into this laptop! You had the admin account!”

            She heard footsteps coming down the stairs, and Pidge only narrowly avoided being crushed when Matt vaulted the back of the couch to sit next to her.

            “It still works?” Matt took the laptop from her and clicked on the icon for his account: a goofy picture of him and Shiro when they were both younger. Those two had been friends for as long as Pidge could remember.

            “I was surprised too. Come on, log in!” It took Matt a few tries, but he eventually got the password right and managed to bring up the desktop, with a screenshot from some old video game as his background and way too many shortcuts for computer games covering half of the screen.

            “I wonder if we still have the discs for any of these.” Matt opened up the file explorer—or whatever they called it back then—and started looking through the different folders. “Hey, all of my old music is still on here!”

            “It’s not like your taste has changed much since middle school, Matt. Did you really miss any of it?” Pidge made a grab for the laptop. “Come on, let me see my old stuff!”

            “Wait your turn! I’m looking through it!”

            “I found it!”

            “And I got into it!”

            “Kids, it’s been over eight years, please tell me you aren’t still fighting over that old laptop.” Even though they were both grown adults, Pidge and Matt still froze, glancing at their mother to make sure she was just joking, and not actually about to confiscate the laptop. They had both invoked the wrath of Colleen Holt a few too many times as children, and old habits die hard.

             “I still want to look through my stuff before you go on a nostalgia trip,” Pidge grumbled as soon as their mother was out of earshot.

            “I’ll give you a turn, hang on. I gotta show this to Shiro, he’ll get a kick out of it.” As soon as Matt let go of the laptop to get his phone out of his pocket, Pidge snatched it from his lap and started clicking through the file explorer to open up the files on her account.

            “Katie, give it back! You know you can’t get to your files without the admin password. You have to give it back!” Pidge pushed her brother off of her, typing with one hand while the other fought off Matt. She’d had years of practice to master the technique, and it seemed that Matt was out of practice.

            “I saw you type it in, Matt.” Pidge got past the prompt for the admin password and found all of her old files right where she had left them. “Oh, man, all of my stuff is still here!” All of her old school projects, mods she had written for _The Sims 2_ when she was first learning how to code, bad drawings done in MS Paint with her friends, they were all still cluttering up her folders. She’d meant to organize it, she really had. She just… never got around to it.

            “Okay, you saw your stuff, now give it back!” Matt made one last grab for the laptop and managed to get ahold of one corner. Neither of them moved, mentally debating with themselves about whether it was worth it to actually fight for the laptop. The last time they had done that, the laptop had spent a week at the repair shop getting the screen fixed and the disc drive replaced. Mom and dad weren’t going to pay for it this time if they broke it again.

            “Fine, but you get it for fifteen minutes and then I get it back!” Pidge insisted.

            “Make it twenty and I won’t go through your stuff to find blackmail material,” Matt threatened.

            “You wouldn’t.” The scheming look that Matt was giving her was enough to tell Pidge that he was dead serious. “You monster.” She handed over the laptop, glaring when Matt gave her a smug look of victory. “You’re going to regret threatening me,” she promised, though she wasn’t sure if he had even heard her over his own cheers when he found something that he apparently thought he’d lost forever.

            There were a few replies to her messages in the group chat, so Pidge turned her attention to those while Matt geeked out over some old project he’d made on the laptop back in middle school.

            _Sporks are the superior utensil: No way, is that the old Dell that you had forever ago?_

_I don’t need pants, I’m a mermaid: Wait, is that the one we used to play the sims on? Do you still have the save files?_

At least Lance was feeling better. Pidge definitely hadn’t deleted any of their old games, but she couldn’t be sure that Matt left them alone.

            _Two Peanuts: Well, I would answer that if someone wasn’t hogging the laptop right now._

_Two Peanuts: **@oh shit, my patella** this is a callout post.  >.>_

            “You agreed to twenty minutes, Katie. I still have access to all of your dark secrets. Didn’t you keep a diary on here?” Pidge never thought that clicking on a trackpad could be considered threatening, but she didn’t trust the way Matt was smiling at the screen.

            “If you so much as touch my stuff, I will brick your computer and destroy every backup you’ve made since high school. Choose your battles, brother.” For the record, she _had_ kept a virtual diary, but abandoned it after a while. It just wasn’t the same as confiding her deepest secrets to a physical notebook. It was password-protected anyway, and she would have to change her password before she could even get into it. Still, it was important to remind her brother what the stakes were for messing with her stuff.

            Sure enough, Matt slumped down in his seat and started clicking through some more menus. “You know, I think it’s in my best interest to just spill this stuff myself. No sense in giving you the satisfaction.” Before Pidge could figure out what her brother was talking about, her phone chimed with a notification from the GroupMe.

            _oh shit, my patella: Guys, you’ll never guess what I found._

_oh shit, my patella sent a photo to Long Live the Voltron Squad._

_oh shit, my patella: old Twilight self-insert fanfiction from seventh grade._

“Give me the laptop right now, I have to see this.” The fact that she could no longer use this particular evidence as leverage didn’t even occur to Pidge as she practically threw herself across her brother’s lap to get the laptop from him. Sure enough, he had MS Word 2003 open with a document written in one of the most horrifying script fonts Pidge had ever seen. “How can you even read this?”

            “I can’t, but the file names were quite descriptive.” Pidge glanced at the top of the window before glaring at her brother.

            “I am disgusted.”

            Her phone chimed again, in time for Matt to shove her off of his lap and onto the floor. Pidge couldn’t wait for school to start so she didn’t have to live in the same house as him for eight whole, blessed months of peace.

            _I do not need your permission: No way, you still have that?_

_I do not need your permission: Are you ready to admit that you were wrong?_

_oh shit, my patella: Excuse you, Allura, but Bella belonged with Edward and you know it._

_I do not need your permission: Edward was an abusive creep and Bella deserved better!_

_I don’t need pants, I’m a mermaid: Wait, Allura read Twilight?_

_Sporks are the superior utensil: Lance, you read Twilight. You don’t get to judge._

_I don’t need pants, I’m a mermaid: I’m with Allura though, Edward was horrible. Everyone was horrible. The whole series was horrible._

_Two Peanuts: ^^^_

_Two Peanuts: Eclipse was somewhat tolerable, but the rest was complete garbage._

_Sporks are the superior utensil: Uh, no, Eclipse was just as bad as the rest. Read: irredeemable trash._

_I don’t need pants, I’m a mermaid: The movies did do pretty well on the casting, tho._

_Sporks are the superior utensil: Okay, I will allow that. The whole series has a single redeeming quality. In the midst of several, several terrible qualities._

_I do not need your permission: Are we really discussing Twilight in this, the year of our lord 2017?_

_I don’t need pants, I’m a mermaid: You and Matt started it._

Pidge glanced up at Matt, who was snickering while he scrolled through what Pidge guessed was more fanfiction. “Finding anything good?”

            “This is an emotional journey, and at the risk of giving Allura the satisfaction, I have to admit that she’s right.”

            _Two Peanuts: **@I do not need your permission** Matt just admitted defeat. You were right._

_I do not need your permission: **@oh shit, my patella** get in here and own up to it like an adult._

_oh shit, my patella: Considering we’re discussing literal Twilight, I don’t think the rules of adulthood really apply here. I will own up to nothing._

_I don’t need pants, I’m a mermaid: Matt, how could you possibly be Team Edward? This is a betrayal far beyond anything I have experienced in my 20 years of life. This is a low blow, even for you._

_oh shit, my patella: I thought he was romantic, okay? I was a young, impressionable boy who wanted Bella to be happy, and she wanted Edward!_

_I don’t need pants, I’m a mermaid: That shit wasn’t romantic, it was stalker-ish and wrong!_

_I don’t need pants, I’m a mermaid: He watched her sleep, Matt! That’s creepy!_

_I don’t need pants, I’m a mermaid: Romantic is taking someone out for a nice candlelit dinner, or buying them a cute little bracelet you found on vacation because it’s their favorite color, not isolating someone from their friends and family and getting all possessive over them!_

Pidge knew that she shouldn’t do it. Not so soon after the last time. But Lance was practically handing her a golden opportunity here, and she’d be a fool not to take it. This was for his own good. And Shiro should still be asleep, even considering his tendency to wake up at obscene hours of the morning. This was the perfect opportunity to approach Lance about certain… topics, without interference.

            _Two Peanuts: Sounds pretty specific, Lance. Got anyone in particular that you’re referring to? ;)_

The response was almost instant.

_I don’t need pants, I’m a mermaid: Don’t you dare, Pidge. You promised you were going to drop that subject._

_Two Peanuts: I promised nothing. I apologized for teasing you about it. This is different. This is for your benefit, not mine._

_I don’t need pants, I’m a mermaid: Katherine Holt, I am dead serious. Drop. It._

            “Oh shit, he pulled the full name card.” Matt was laughing a lot harder than Pidge thought was reasonable for the situation. “Wait, I’ve got it.”

            _oh shit, my patella: Use her middle name, it’s Alicia._

“You should be on my side!” Pidge squawked, turning on her brother who was now clutching his sides, he was laughing so hard. “This involves your best friend!”

            “Okay, yeah.” Matt stopped and made a show of wiping a single tear from his eye. “You have a point there. Shiro’s never going to admit to anything.”

            Pidge turned back to the GroupMe, intending to persuade Lance into admitting his (rather obvious) crush. Everyone could see it, so what was the point in denying it? They were all friends, it’s not like anyone was going to get mad at him or anything.

            _I don’t need pants, I’m a mermaid: I’m serious, there’s nothing to talk about, so I don’t want to talk about it._

            Pidge knew that she was walking a very fine line with Lance right now. There were a few ways that she could go about this. On the one hand, neither Lance nor Shiro would ever admit that they liked the other without outside intervention. On the other, they were both stubborn as hell when it came down to it, and it would be kind of low, even for Pidge, to really try to force one of them into a confession, even if she knew for certain by this point that it was mutual. Matt really needed to be more careful about letting people see him type in his passwords. Shiro might not have explicitly _said_ that he had a thing for Lance, but it was pretty clear to anyone reading his chat logs that he definitely had a thing for Lance.

            _Two Peanuts: Denial’s not just a river in Egypt, but if you want to keep swimming in it, I won’t stop you. :P_

_I don’t need pants, I’m a mermaid: Pidge, I swear to god, I will leave this group chat if you don’t cut it out._

_Two Peanuts: Alright, alright._

_Two Peanuts: I’m just saying, normally you run with this kind of thing. It’s not like you to deny accusations of the romantic variety unless there’s some truth to them. Need I remind you of Nyma?_

            Pidge attached a smug emoji and got a few likes from the others. The message that Lance was typing appeared at the bottom of the screen almost immediately, then disappeared before popping up again, like Lance was retyping whatever it was that he wanted to say. Even Matt was glued to his phone at this point, and the anticipation was tangible. Even from the friends that lived in completely different parts of the country, or planet in Allura’s case.

            _I don’t need pants, I’m a mermaid: okay fine_

_I don’t need pants, I’m a mermaid: if it’ll get you to leave this the fuck alone_

“You made him actually curse,” Matt snickered.

            “Shut up, you’re ruining the suspense.” Pidge waved him away, waiting for her moment of triumph.

            _I don’t need pants, I’m a mermaid: I might_

_I don’t need pants, I’m a mermaid: MIGHT_

_I don’t need pants, I’m a mermaid: have a… very small, and totally not big enough to act on under any circumstances so don’t get any ideas, crush on a certain mutual friend of ours._

_I don’t need pants, I’m a mermaid: not naming names. You can’t make me._

_I don’t need pants, I’m a mermaid: there, are you happy?_

_Two Peanuts: Extremely._

            She just managed to screenshot the evidence before all of the messages vanished, presumably hidden by Lance before Shiro had a chance to wake up and see them. Now that she had (albeit, indirect) confirmation from both of them, she could enact phase two of her plan.

            She had set up the group chat earlier that day, but nobody had been added to it yet. The invitations didn’t take long to send out, and everyone (save for Keith, who wouldn’t be awake for a few more hours at the very least) replied pretty quickly.

            _Hunk Garrett: Is there a reason you needed to make an entire new group chat?_

_Matt Holt: Katie, you’re sitting two feet away from me, what is it?_

_Allura Voclain: Can I ask why only we’ve been added to this group chat?_

_Katie Holt: Yes, be patient Matt, and all will be explained in due time, Allura._

_Katie Holt: Long story short, I have evidence that our dear friends are both pining fools and it’s up to us to get them together._

_Hunk Garrett: Uh, this sounds like a terrible idea._

_Allura Voclain: I have to agree, this sounds like a disaster waiting to happen._

_Allura Voclain: Also, what evidence?_

_Katie Holt: Well, you all saw that pitiful admittance of Lance’s affections for our dear, oblivious Shiro._

_Katie Holt: And I may have viewed some confidential messages from Shiro reacting to The Photo Incident™._

_Keith Kogane: We are not calling it that._

_Keith Kogane: It was completely unintentional and we are not going to call it that._

_Katie Holt: how are you awake it’s like five am over there you never wake up this early._

_Keith Kogane: Shiro wants to go for a run before it gets ridiculously sunny and he’s making me go with him. I’m actually only half awake right now._

_Keith Kogane: But you’re changing the subject and for the last time it was an accident._

_Katie Holt: A fortuitous accident worth memorializing._

_Katie Holt changed the group’s avatar._

_Keith Kogane changed the group’s avatar._

_Keith Kogane: You delete that right now._

Pidge had no intention of deleting the frankly hilarious picture of Shiro that Keith had sent to the group last night, but she would accept the picture of Keith’s cat that he had replaced the avatar with. Red was adorable, and adorable cats were always acceptable. She saved that pic too.

            _Katie Holt: ANYWAY, the whole point of this group chat is so that we can figure out how to get those two pining dorks together so they can stop being sad while they pine. Don’t you all want our friends to be not sad?_

After a moment for everyone to consider, they all sent their messages of reluctant agreement. Pidge already had a few ideas, but having some help would be nice.

            _Katie Holt: Alright, Operation Get Those Dorks Together is officially underway._

_Katie Holt changed the group’s avatar._

_Keith Kogane: PIDGE_


End file.
